Looming over the hill is the start of the next fiscal year on July 1 and after months of planning sessions, meetings, and proposals the time has arrived for the residents of Surry County to get their first look at the operating budget proposed for next year.
A question was posed earlier this year by Vice Chair Mark Marion as to whether this would be the year that Surry County’s budget crosses the $100 million mark — the answer is coming soon.
County Manager Chris Knopf informed that he would present the fiscal year 2024-2025 recommended budget to the Surry County Board of Commissioners at the next meeting to be held at 6 p.m., Monday, June 3 at the Historic Courthouse in Dobson.
Heads of various county departments, local volunteer fire departments and rescues squads, Sheriff Steve C. Hiatt, Dr. David Shockley of Surry Community College, and the three school system superintendents all made preliminary presentations that highlighted changes in requests from the previous year.
If there was one common theme among all presentations regardless of department or service offered it is that the cost of doing business is up. Be those utilities, fuel costs for fleet vehicles, maintenance of buildings, or cost of living adjustments for staff — the trend is that conducting day to day affairs is more expensive and there appears to be no relief in sight.
According to the public notice from the county, Knopf has delivered a copy of the recommended budget to each member of the board of commissioners. For those not on the board, a copy of the proposed budget is available for public inspection at the Historic Courthouse at 114 W. Atkins St. in downtown Dobson.
For the current fiscal year, the county website quotes the budget as $98,014,534, which was up from the fiscal year 2022-2023 budget listed at $93,597,569 after the county’s budget took a dramatic leap from $83 million in fiscal year 2021-2022 when the country and economy was in the throes of the pandemic.
At the following meeting of the board, on Monday, June 17, there will be a public hearing regarding the budget. County residents will have the opportunity to speak out about the budget proposals before they are finalized.
These meetings are always open to the public and those who cannot attend are invited to watch live online or find the complete video of the meeting posted on the Surry County YouTube page (www.youtube.com/@surrycountynccommissioners).
In other board news,
- Alexandra Crissman was seeking to rezone 2.73 acres of land off Cadle Ford Road from Restricted Residential to Rural Agriculture. This tract of land is found to the North of Beeswax Lane and shares its Northernmost border with White Plains Elementary.
The planning board recommended approval of the request as it is in compliance with the 2040 Land Use Plan saying that it was both reasonable and in the public interest. They said it would “offer more housing options, including health and affordable housing.”
County Planning Director Marty Needham said that land around the lot in question holds zoning for both Rural Agricultural and Restricted Residential meaning that the requested change would be compatible to other land uses around which is a stipulation for approval.
“Since the parcel has not been developed since zoning was established in 2001, it is reasonable and in the public interests to reclassify this parcel to RA to allow the possibility of residential use or manufactured homes,” the Planning Board found.
“It would not be out of the norm to reclassify this parcel to RA to allow a residential use of a manufactured home seeing that it has not been developed since zoning was established,” Needham concurred.
In addressing the board, Crissman informed that with limited options and high prices, she was navigating the best course forward to secure housing for her family. She said, “As you know housing prices are out the roof right now and me and my growing family need to get out of our rental house, and this is the best way we can do it.”
Chairman Van Tucker applauded her for taking initiative to improve their situation as the board is well aware of the lack of housing options. “If you don’t take up for yourself, there’s a good chance nobody else will do it as well.” The request to rezone was approved without objection.
- Tax administrator Penny Harrison informed there has been interest from residents in using “the automatic clearinghouse or ACH through Truist. This will give the citizens another convenient way to pay their taxes and EMS fees at a low cost.”
She received approval from the board to implement an ACH payment option including a one-time $5 transaction fee per year for the service. Once implemented, those who opt in will have payments automatically drafted from the account of their choice to pay their bills to the county.
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